The stories bout the cleverness of ravens are true. You can see Brent’s car as you walk out of the house for the last time, with everything that could be detached with clever raven claws and beaks detached. it’s quite impressive. They’d somehow managed to pull apart the lights without breaking the light-bulbs. They’d lined a circle around the hummer with them.
“Okay, so we’re going to the glen,” you say. “And we’re finding my parents.”
The young raven, who’d introduced himself as Cup-Noodle-Thief, CNT for short, has been waiting for you patiently. He croaks excitedly, flies around and does a barrel roll. Atomic-Crisco, the elderly one, is on your bike’s handlebar already.
“We should hurry then. It’s a day’s flight, and you need to make it before the rising of the moon,” he says.
“And we really should know your heraldry before that. I’ve heard some of them can be really harsh about protocol,” adds CNT.
You shrug, and load your tent into the saddle bags.
You really don’t care about stuff like that right now. You want some answers. You want to know why they’d never came to look for you. The changeling is suppressed to return, that’s the story. They’re supposed to come back for it. There’s at least one story that goes like that. And they’d left you here.
CNT croaks at Crisco. Crisco jumps on the seat.
“Fine, what about it? I thought you said you don’t know what house I’m from.” You say.
You’ve been talking and observing them logn enough to know that Crisco is a stubborn old bastard. He won’t move until he gets his way.
“I can make an educated guess,” he says, wryly. “You’ll need to buy some mirrors. And fresh bread. Pricey liqueur wouldn’t hurt.” And he says nothing more.
You sigh. It’s a bit alarming that they won’t tell you what they know before getting you to the glen. But fuck it.
It does take an entire day to get there. In the end, its just an abandoned strip of land beside a highway. You got the bag of bagels, and merlot, and 60 hand-held mirrors.
The rest of the flock caught up with you when you were in the traffic jam, getting out of the city. You just know CNT led you to take that route on purpose, somehow. YOu just hope they didn’t cause the car accident. As it was, you missed the moon-rise, and used up both of your first-aid kits.
“Alright, so can you tell me now?” You demand once you’ve set up the tent.
“Of course, my Lord,” says CNT. The rest of the ravens are perched in the shrubbery and the lone tree around your little camp. The gas stove is bubbling away, Crisco nudging the lid every once in a while so it won’t overflow.
“So, I’m pretty sure you’re Dark-Fae, because of the whole, you know, reality warping, but the specific house is trickier. They’d keep the details of the descen-”
“Hold on,” you interrupt. “Firstly, how do you know ‘reality warping’ but not HOA, and also, I’ve been warping reality?”
There’s a chorus of croaking and laughter from around you.
“Aye,” sounds a voice from behind the tent.
You jump to your feet. There’s a fuck-off huge man, with a homely face, dressed in what would be best called bondage-lumberjack outfit, coming around to sit at your fire. He’s smiling, but it’s a smirking smile.
You eye him carefully. You’ve been in a hundred biker bars, and you know that swagger.
“Proper greeting is ‘hello, how are you’, so let’s start there,” you snap.
Crisco chuckles at the pot.
“Your first retainer, it seems. You could do worse. What ho, dryad. How fares thy clan?”
You keep you face blank, your heart hammering in your chest. This is what comes from now hawing the heart to grab the old feather-duster and shaking him until explanations fall out. The large man stops smirking, at least.
He grins, trying for charming. He’d probably pull it off to anyone else, but you’re used to navigating Father and his flock of fawning bitches in the congregation for minimum bodily harm. You can just about smell the apprehension of someone that’s trying to buff his way higher in the pecking order. “I’m tough, tougher than you, really, no, really, just please don’t check-”
“Lawrence, at your service, My Lord,” he says. “How do you fare?”
You don’t point out that you’re more of a Lordship. Gentleperson? Bah. The particulars of your gender are irrelevent right now, and the ravens have been using it more as a title than anything else, anyways.
“I fare impatient. What reality warping?”
Lawrence smirks again. You feel a stab of pity. He’s trying so hard, bless him, he wouldn’t last one day in the Inner Divinity Circle.
“You’re a Fae Lord of the Shaded Shack, Lord. Reality warping is your purview. You can impose your will on the world, the way you think things should be.” He sits on his knees like in a Japanese movie, the leather rig creaking as he rolls his shoulders. The light from the lantern shines of the straining buttons on the plaid shirt. Is he…?
“Be nice to know what that is,” you say pointedly to Crisco. He manages to conwey a shrug.
“Young Cup-Noodle-Thief was enjoying his first attempts at fool-dom, Lord. I felt he should try, as he will replace me. I am…old.”
He tries to twist off the gas stove. Lawrence reaches over and twists it for him. His demeanor is entirely changed. He’s now blank-faced and subdued. His eyes are lowered.
Your mind races. There’s a hierarchy here. You can see the outlines. Atomic Crisco just implied something important. Fool is taken, and above Retainer.
“I got ways to go,” mutters CNT. “But yeah. It’s like, an area of effect. And I know an HOA is a thing fancy neighbourhoods have, it’s like, an important flock within the flock that no-one likes. And I was trying to sound fancy, cause we though you were a fancy Fae Lord that was taking a holiday. Sorry,” he adds.
You forgive him immediately. CNT was the goofball of the flock, and before… today, you always loved to whatch what stupid escapade he’d get himself into.
“You’re still not explaining yourself,” you say softly.
CNT looks at Lawrence, then pointedly at you. Lawrence, for his part, is still lowering his eyes.
“This world is… soft, to a being of your power, my Lord. We didn’t know you were a High House until you made the rest of the flock like us.”
He nods towards Crisco. He croaks, then says in a jovial tone:
“It was a lark to see the lowbeast flockmates suddenly awaken one day with cognition. One day your biggest puzzle is the shine of a trashcan and why you can’t eat it, and the next you’re Wise and re-inventing the descartian reasoning of existence in a panic.”
“Hey, man, fuck you,” sounds from one of the bushes. A chorus of laughter sounds. You chuckle. CNT preens, and Crisco nods approvingly.
“So because I spoke to you since I was little-”
“We spoke back. I already was Wise, courtesy of Lord Star, but of the rest, Cup-Noodle-Thief was the first. Do you remember giving him his name?”
You stare at CNT. You called him that, you remember, when you were watching him in the park.
“Yeah, I was eating those noodles, and then suddenly thought Hey, these aren’t meat, they just smell like meat, what the fuck? An then panicked because I thought my thoughts were someone talking,” says CNT.
“So this Lord Star is my father?” you ask.
“I have no idea, I’m sorry, my Lord.” Crisco looks ashamed.
“Yeah, they keep kids under wraps until they come into their power. You could be, or you could be one of the hundreds of others. Powers are random, people just join the High Houses later once they manifest based on them. I’m not even fully up on those, I found maybe a dozen Houses to figure out your heraldy, and I was focusing on weasels, cause you had so much plushies of them, and green and black colours and do you know how many houses-” Okay, so he tried to guess your house based on what you wore? Poor guy. You wore exactly three shades on green and black, and- Lawence shifted.
“You know more about Houses and things, right, Lawrence?”
Lawrence takes a deep breath. You narrow your eyes. He looks… stubborn.
“It’s not the privilege of a retainer, to advise, my Lord.”
“Not a privilege of a dryad to try and usurp a Wise Awakened, either.” snarks CNT, “But it looks like your woody self grew a pair of more than just fruit, eh?” He looks hopefully towards you. Crisco groans.
You can apparetly warp reality to the point of granting cognition, your one retainer is a extorting dryad, and your Fool makes dirty puns.
“You can kneel there until you feel otherwise,” you tell Lawrence. You give it 10 hours, because he’s a stubborn one, he’s kneeling on rocks, and he’s feeling it already. You hate thet you can predict that so accurately.
He looks startled. Yeah buddy, and I won’t cave even if you hold your breath, either, you think. There’s laughter from the flock around you.
Still, your stew is done, and you have some answers. You’ll eat, sleep, and get more answers.
